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Date Published: Thursday, March 9, 2017
Date Updated: Friday, June 30, 2023

Westchester Medical Center Health Network Names Tracey Weigel, MD, as Chief of Thoracic Surgery

Dr. Weigel brings extensive clinical and research experience in the minimally invasive and robotic surgical treatment of thoracic malignancies and benign conditions and is a national leader in thoracic surgery.

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VALHALLA, N.Y. (March 9, 2017) – Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) recently named thoracic surgeon Tracey Weigel, MD, as Chief of Thoracic Surgery for the health network's Valhalla, Poughkeepsie and Kingston campuses. In her role as Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Dr. Weigel will oversee all thoracic surgery functions at WMCHealth's flagship Westchester Medical Center, as well as Maria Fareri Children's Hospital, MidHudson Regional Hospital, HealthAlliance Hospital: Broadway Campus and HealthAlliance Hospital: Mary's Avenue Campus, all members of WMCHealth.

As Dr. Weigel joins the Department of Surgery, she brings extensive clinical and research experience in the minimally invasive and robotic surgical treatment of thoracic malignancies and benign conditions and is a national leader in thoracic surgery.

Among her specialties are robotic thoracoscopic and laparoscopic surgeries including: lobectomy for lung cancer, esophagectomy, thymectomy (for thymoma and myasthenia gravis), excision of mediastinal masses including leiomyomas and schwannomas. Her practice also includes robotic laparoscopic foregut surgery such as: reduction and repair of complex hiatal and paraesophageal hernias, and heller myotomy for achalasia.

As Chief of Thoracic Surgery, Dr. Weigel's vision is to make advanced minimally invasive and robotic thoracic surgical services available to patients throughout the Hudson Valley region.

Her clinical research has focused primarily on developing minimally invasive surgeries for lung and esophageal cancer and the preoperative assessment of high risk COPD and geriatric patient populations. Her personal philosophy of care is to tailor care to the individual patient, optimizing each patient's candidacy for a curative, minimally invasive, multimodality treatment approach.

Most recently, Dr. Weigel served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery and Medical Director of the Comprehensive Thoracic Oncology Program at Maine Medical Center an affiliate of Tufts Medical School, in Portland, Maine. There, she coordinated thoracic surgical care across the seven-hospital Maine Health system. She has also held prior appointments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pittsburgh, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Board certified in thoracic cardiovascular surgery by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, Dr. Weigel earned her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and completed a general surgery residency at Brown University, a Surgical Oncology Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center with specialization in Thoracic Oncology and a cardiothoracic surgery residency at the University of Wisconsin.

Dr. Weigel lives in Palisades, where she was born and raised. She is an avid runner and cyclist and enjoys spending free time with family and friends.

About Westchester Medical Center Health Network

The Westchester Medical Center Health Network (WMCHealth) is a 1,700-bed healthcare system headquartered in Valhalla, New York, with 10 hospitals on eight campuses spanning 6,200 square miles of the Hudson Valley. WMCHealth employs more than 12,000 people and has nearly 3,000 attending physicians. From Level 1, Level 2 and Pediatric Trauma Centers, the region's only acute care children's hospital, an academic medical center, several community hospitals, dozens of specialized institutes and centers, skilled nursing, assisted living facilities, homecare services and one of the largest mental health systems in New York State, today WMCHealth is the pre-eminent provider of integrated healthcare in the Hudson Valley. For more information about WMCHealth, visit http://www.wmchealth.org/.

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